More Frugal Gift Ideas

Here are some more frugal gift ideas from some of my Frugal Readers.

The Grammarphile writes: "Whenever I read magazines, I pull out pages that have interesting backgrounds or pictures or words on them and save them in a folder. I make refrigerator magnets (using the business card-sized magnets), bookmarks, and notecards for people when I need a fun, handmade gift. I'll have to try using some of the magazine pages to make a cool decoupage box! Those little wooden and cardboard boxes are so inexpensive at Michael's and other craft stores."

Not only are the boxes inexpensive at craft stores, both Michael's and JoAnn Fabrics have weekly 40% off coupons good for one item. And, boxes from around the house work great, too. I've even done magazine holders in decoupage.

My sister writes that "this year for the little cousins, I am making Family Memory Games. It is just like the card game Memory only the cards are pictures of family members. Naturally, there are two copies of each picture in the deck. I order the wallet prints from Sam's Club so I automatically get two prints and no further cropping is needed. I'm using heavy double sided printed paper to mount the photos on and I may or may not laminate the cards. I haven't figured out how much each deck will cost, but even after getting some little tins from Michaels' to put the cards in, I don't imagine it will be that much and it will surely be less than what I would have spent otherwise."

I'm sensing a theme here...craft stores (Michael's) are great for the frugal gifter. I'm bummed that my boys are too old to qualify for "little cousin" status. Watch the prices on laminating, that can run up the cost really quickly!

Keep those frugal gift ideas coming! I'll post the best ones in future posts.

Meaningful Holiday Gifts

Christmas is two months from today. Does anyone else shudder in terror at the thought? Trying to figure out Christmas gifts is always a Herculean effort, especially if trying to add smart spending into the mix.

Some of the best holiday gifts are those that don't require money, but require some time. They are more meaningful to the recipient, and especially to the giver, because you have a little more invested than the time it took to shop for it and wrap it up.

Gifts I have given in the past that took more time than money:

• Cross-stitched items such as table runners and holiday decorations (this was BC--before children)
• A recipe book full of favorite recipes collected from family members
• CDs of old family pictures that I scanned and turned into JPGs
• Decoupaged boxes (and initials) made with recycled page-a-day calendar illustrations.

I especially like giving presents to family members that have some significance. Everyone has really enjoyed and used their recipe books. This year, I have a couple of fun Christmas projects in the works. And, no, I won't tell you what they are, as some of the recipients read this blog!

Have you made (or received) a great holiday gift that would fall in this category? I'd love to hear about them. And, after Christmas, I promise to tell you what I made this year.

A Fun Recycling Project

Here's a fun project that my hubby did the other day for a friend of ours.

My hubby has had a pair of these computer-component lamps in his office at work for years (which he made using lamps he picked up at a garage sale), and our friend has coveted them every time she stopped by. She had been looking for a glass lamp to fill like this for quite some time, but all the ones she found were prohibitively expensive (and by prohibitively, I mean upwards of $100). So, when my hubby found this one (sans computer parts) sitting out in front of our neighbor's house for free, he knew exactly what to do with it.

The lamp was filthy (the house was definitely inhabited by smokers). He had to clean the shade, wash the glass, and polish all the brass. He also bought a new wiring kit at Home Depot for about $10.00.

After cleaning it and rewiring it, he filled it with old computer and electronics components--hard drives, chips, an old DVD remote, anything electronic that he could find. This is a great way to reuse components from obsolete computers.

Our friend's husband contributed quite a bit of the computer components, so it includes several things that she recognizes. We gave it to her tonight, and she loved it!

I love things like this, when you can take something old, and something (or things) that are utterly worthless and come up with something new and useful.

Uses for Page-a-Day Calendar Pages

This is a post I've wanted to write since I first started this blog, but I never found the time to take the pictures before now.

For several years, Santa has left each of us a page-a-day calendar in our stockings. Every family member gets one that fits their interests. The first calendar I ever got was a Mary Engelbreit one, and I just adored the full-color illustrations.

It seemed a shame to either recycle them, or use the backsides for taking phone messages (which we do with our black-and-white calendar pages), so I found something new to do with them: decoupage!
Using just some Mod-Podge, a foam brush, and a pair of scissors, I used the pages to make all sorts of useful, attractive containers. Just cut, glue, overlap as you'd like until the entire surface is covered. Then paint over the entire surface with decoupage glue, wait 24 hours, add a second coat of decoupage glue, and there you go!

I wrapped the decoupaging over onto the bottom of the boxes to give it a clean look, then covered the bottom with a piece of felt. These are some inexpensive papier-mache boxes that I bought on sale at Michaels. I've also used the photo-file boxes that you can get for a buck or two at Michaels.
I have also used this technique on boxes that I have gotten other things in (large boxes of business-sized envelopes are great). I keep most of my scrapbooking supplies in these boxes, which look cute on my computer desk shelf.
I even covered a cardboard magazine holder to use on my kitchen counter as a paper recycling bin. It's much easier to put paper to be recycled here, then empty it in the big garage bin when it gets full.
This past winter, I found some really awesome papier-mache letters at JoAnn. I did up my initials in Mary Engelbreit pages and took them to my office. My boys liked the idea so much that they had me do letters for their room. My youngest chose his Frogs calendar pages (sorry, the picture is a little hard to see because of the flash).

My oldest chose The Simpsons, which I think turned out really great. Both boys have these sitting on the top of their bookshelves in their rooms. These letters are about 12 inches tall, and they come in larger and smaller sizes as well.

I have at least 8 of these decoupage boxes at home, and have given many as gifts as well. They are fun to make, very inexpensive, and definitely frugal!